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BADMINTON COED VICTORS
 
Photo by Paul Fielding

Badminton Successes Term Two

Paul Fielding —

The boy’s badminton team narrowly lost the Premier Division 1 semi-final against Kavanagh College at the end of Term Two. 

In three of the six matches Logan Park had chances to win but just missed out, eventually losing the overall exciting rubber 4/2. David Spencer had match point in his singles, while the number two doubles pairing also went to match point for both sides. In the last match our number one player Punn Ruayruen won the first game, lost the second and was two points behind when the lights went out, instantly ending the game, which meant his singles was also lost. A victory in any of these three matches would have resulted in Logan Park winning the tie.

Our Division Three team of Theo Molteno, Joseph Dewhirst, Kevin Chung and Hamish Mckinlay easily won this division winning the final match against Bayfield 6/0. Kavanagh went on to beat Otago Boys in the Division One final, while Logan Park won the third place match easily against Kings.

A chance to avenge the Kavanagh defeat came in the co-ed sports tournament when five mixed school teams (Logan Park, Taieri, Bayfield, South Otago and Kavanagh) played out a whole day’s competition at Bayfield’s gymnasium. This year our girls’ team was particularly strong and together with the boys they sought a first ever victory over Kavanagh at the Co-ed tournament after three second places in recent years.

After the first round of matches Kavanagh were narrowly ahead by four points. It all came down to the reverse mixed doubles in the afternoon. The pairing of David Spencer and Emily Wu ­­­came from two points down with two minutes to go to lead by three, and then by one as the time elapsed, to win. Our number four pairing of Moshe Vincent and Jorja Hutton won easily by ten points, while our number two pair of Yuto Tada and Yui Matsuba held on for a win. This 3/1 victory gave us the overall lead in the competition ahead of Kavanagh and assured first place for the day.

Badminton was the only Logan Park sport to come first overall in all the sports on offer that day. Overall Logan Park came second in the tournament for the sports which was our combined highest ever result.

Next year the boy’s team will need to rebuild as all four are leaving school at the end of 2016 while the girls team will all be back, which is pleasing.